Cold War cartography: Mapping where Soviets could - and could not - go in 1950's America

It may seem surprising to us today, but as recently as 1962 there were very specific places in America where denizens of Mother Russia were—and were not—allowed to travel and there is a map to prove it.

On January 3, 1955, the United States Departments of Justice and Interior began enforcing restrictions on where visiting Soviet citizens could visit in the U.S.

A result of the American government’s fear of looking more secretive than the country behind the Iron Curtain—which lifted an all-out ban on American travelers after Stalin’s death in 1953—the U.S. instated rules as similar to the Soviets as possible.

Off limits: A map shows where Soviet travelers were allowed in the US, and not allowed. Green meant a no-go for communist travelers from 1955-1962

They began to allow the lucky few private Soviet citizens OK’d by their own country to make a stateside visit, to travel to certain places in America so long as they provided detailed itineraries along with their Visa applications.

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Marked in green are the areas Soviet citizens were banned from. These swaths of America include much of California’s coast, most of the Eastern Seaboard, and large chunks of seemingly random states like the Dakotas, Colorado, New Mexico, and Washington.

Like many maps, this one marks large and capital cities with dots. But on this one, the dots indicate cities Soviets could and could not visit.

Ike: The stipulations on Soviet travel were first made under President Eisenhower in 1955

Cold war games: The changes came after the death of Joseph Stalin in 1953, when Russia loosened its own ban on American travelers and the U.S. feared it would appear secretive if if did not follow suit

A white dot encircled in black indicates a city in otherwise off-limits areas to which Soviets could travel. Examples include Los Angeles, which is in the middle of the West Coast’s field of green, and Houston, an exception in the mostly green eastern part of Texas.

A solid dot, on the other hand, indicates a city that is off-limits but inside an area that can otherwise be visited. Examples of these include Memphis, Atlanta, and Kalamazoo.

And there are other quirks of the 1955 map that seem downright pointless in 2013.

Random: According to the map, Soviet citizens could visit bustling New York, but were banned from much smaller places like Birmingham, Alabama, Ashland, Kentucky, and Kansas City Missouri (but Kansas City, Kansas was okay)

For example, Soviets could visit Kansas City, Kansas, but could not cross the border to Kansas City, Missouri. However, most everywhere else in Missouri was okay. Except the area surrounding St. Louis, though the city itself was OK’d.

Washington, DC and New York City were evidently not centers of espionage and intrigue, while St. Paul, Minnesota, apparently, was.

This odd arrangement remained in place throughout Eisenhower’s time as president. Then, in 1962, the Kennedy administration lifted it as a gesture of good will and openness.

Reopen: Washington (which was also allowed, if you were wondering) lifted the ban and opened all the U.S. to Soviet visitors under President JFK in 1962

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Cold War cartography: Mapping where Soviets could - and could not - go in 1950's America